The Streets Were Paved with Gold - Ken Auletta [195]
There is also the matter of ideology. Labor has traditionally been perceived as the good guy, the underdog. Habits of thought change no less slowly than habits of governance.
No contract, no loan, said the unions. No Control Board, no agreement on future loans, said the banks. No labor contract or agreement with the banks, no loan legislation, said the federal government. No city agreements, no extension of the Control Board and MAC’s borrowing authority, said the state. “The system will never respond,” says the Control Board’s chief auditor, Deputy State Comptroller Sidney Schwartz. “It’s inherent in the system. You have a kind of democratic environment which provides certain protections for established groups, such as labor. It’s almost impossible to make sudden changes. Under dictators it’s easy—‘Off with your head!’ ”
Labor is not the only culprit. The banks and the investment community and a host of lesser special interests are carrying out, as they should in a democracy, the task of advancing their interests. The problem is that public officials, who are supposed to represent the broader public interest and check the power of special interests, find it difficult to do so. Democratic government cannot function without the consent of powerful groups; it must persuade, not command. And yet, when it succeeds, it does so slowly and at great cost. Confronted with the fiscal crisis, New York could make only incremental reforms. “I really do believe in the system,” Koch’s thirty-year-old press secretary, Maureen Connelly, says. “But after six months I’ve decided it can’t be done. I mean, little things can be done.” Shell-shocked from being bombarded by interest groups and buffeted from crisis to crisis, she added, “There is a Murphy’s law corollary: A crisis will emerge to fill the vacuum created as another crisis subsides. You don’t have time in government to look ahead. You’re always putting out fires.”
New York’s woes are not uncommon. Detroit and Rutgers University, like New York, chose layoffs of a few of their workers or teachers rather than cuts in benefits for all. Detroit and other cities chose to use federal CETA funds to rehire laid-off city workers rather than give jobs to the poor. President Carter announces a voluntary effort to curb inflation, but business refuses to curb prices, labor to scale down wage demands. By mid-1978, Washington lobbyists had gutted or blocked tax reform, labor law reform, a Consumer Protection Agency and hospital cost containment legislation. Despite proclamations that the energy crisis was America’s most pressing problem, almost two years later President Carter still couldn’t navigate legislation past powerful interest groups in the Congress. The oil companies demand higher profits. Consumer groups demand lower prices. Sometimes the enemy, as Pogo said, is us. Twenty years ago, scientists predicted the energy shortage. That didn’t deter Americans from purchasing electric hair driers, toothbrushes and can openers. If New York now suffers from too few special interests, the country suffers from too many. In all cases, they are too powerful. In a large, diverse nation, interests inevitably collide. Oil-producing states have different interests from non-producers. The Sunbelt doesn’t want to take fewer federal dollars so that the Snowbelt can take more. The rich and the poor don’t share the same interest in tax reform. Cities vie with counties and suburbs